As is commonly known, vehicles typically include a heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. The HVAC system maintains a temperature within a passenger compartment of the vehicle at a comfortable level for a passenger by providing a desired heating, cooling, and ventilation to the passenger compartment. The HVAC system conditions air flowing therethrough and distributes the conditioned air throughout the passenger compartment.
HVAC systems include features that control air flow volume, air temperature, and air flow paths, for example. Performance of the HVAC system may be designed to comply with particular targets including temperature linearity, wherein linearity is a predictable rate of change in temperature. For all operating states, it can be desirable to manipulate hot air streams and cold air streams to produce proper temperatures and the predictable rate of change in the temperature.
In an attempt to achieve desired linearity targets, HVAC systems may include features including baffles, conduits, mixing plates, and/or doors to facilitate mixing or blending of the hot air streams with the cold air streams. The addition of these features and/or components can reduce airflow, degrade flow efficiency, increase noise, and increase the cost and weight of the HVAC system.
For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,231,437 and 7,575,511, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety, disclose temperature doors that cooperate with walls within an HVAC system adjacent the temperature door to form a small constant gap or a variable gap to permit the blending of the hot air stream with the cold air stream. While the temperature doors can be an effective way to permit an amount of airflow volume to flow past the temperature door for blending, the temperature door can be susceptible to undesired noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) (e.g., scraping, squeaking, hooting, whistling, etc.) and airflow volume distribution control.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a temperature door for an HVAC system, wherein a temperature linearity, a flow efficiency, an NVH, and an airflow volume distribution control of the HVAC system are optimized and a cost and a weight of the HVAC system are minimized.